My Home, My Baby Brother
by morgana07
Summary: This is the third little installment that follows my 'Not My Sammy' story. This is from Dean's POV as he struggles with his worry over his brother, what's to come for them and of course having a flooded Impala. Complete.


**My Home, My Baby Brother**

**Summary:** This is the third little installment that follows my 'Not My Sammy' story. This is from Dean's POV as he struggles with his worry over his brother, what's to come for them and of course having a flooded Impala.

**Spoilers/Tags: **Not really tagged to anything and no real spoilers but will have various mentions of previous events from the past seasons.

**Warnings: **Language since this is Dean we're dealing with. Also mention of some abuse but nothing graphic.

**Pairings: **Zip, zero, nada.I do not do slash at any time. This is just some usual brotherly bonding because I like when the boys act like brothers and have been missing that.

"Cas! What part of Bobby asking you to clean the car did you take to mean **flood** my baby?"

I honestly think I did a good job at controlling my tone and the emotions that went with it. I mean, a few years ago, hell up to a year ago, having my baby, the 1967 Impala that has been the symbol of home since I'd been four, flooded by an overly helpful Angel would have sent me flying past rage.

This took some time before I finally made myself go check the damage and even now I'm just in the slow burn stage of blowing up.

Pacing around the car, I look back toward Bobby's house as if making sure it was safe and in some way I guess I am. It's been about a week since Sam's been awake fully since I found him in Lawrence where he'd been held for over a year by a goddamn shapeshifter…I still get pissed when I think too long about that thing.

Not such much that I ignored my gut feeling for so long in regards to the thing that I knew from day one was not my Sammy. Hell, not even that I allowed a 'shifter into my car (which is the reason Cas decided to part the Red Sea inside it) but what makes me furious is when I think to what my little brother endured at the hands of that thing and whatever pals he had.

I see Bobby and Rufus on the porch watching me stalk and growl while Castiel waits in that ever annoying patient way he has for me to go postal. I hear Bobby muttering 'Christo' every time I pace past since he's convinced I've been possessed. Hell, I'd probably think that myself if I didn't know what was going on in my head.

Sammy's sleeping again which is why I took the chance to come check out the damage to our home. Home. It's been a hell of a long time since I've been comfortable saying that word. Not since I lost my brother to a huge gaping hole an I packed the Impala in Lisa's garage.

I usually tried to avoid thinking of anyplace in that way since the last real 'home' I had burned the night Mom died. Sammy didn't remember it so his home, the only thing he's ever considered as home, has been the Impala.

Oh, sure. Both Pastor Jim and Bobby offered Dad the chance to leave us with them while he hunted but he always refused. I usually kept quiet about it but there were times when I resented his choices. More for Sammy's sake than my own. I wanted my baby brother to have a stable life, to be able to go to school in one place and not have to be afraid of a teacher or someone getting too close. Dad though would never go for it. No one really knows how much I hated him for that.

Wincing as I pull open the driver's door and see water dripping from everything I can't help the glare I shoot Cas. "You'd damn well better've at least taken my tapes out before you soaked her."

Not listening to the reply I think that maybe once he's strong enough to be out of the house, much less in the car again, I'll let Sam hook up that damn I-Pod thing he had again. I mean, I hate his taste in music but the car is as much his now as mine…damn I'm either mellowing in old age or even the thought of those puppy-dog eyes is getting to me.

Sam's getting stronger and Bobby swears he's doing good considering what he's been through but try getting that past me right now. Not happening since I still see him in Lawrence and I still see him at nights when those damn nightmares hit.

It's been awhile since I've had to handle Sammy-style nightmares. When he was a baby, way back before he sprouted to Sasquatch size, he was prone to 'em. Dad never really had the time to deal with Sam's nightmares so like the feeding, guarding, and bubble bath times, it was up to me to protect my little brother from his nightmares.

They slowed down as he grew up but after a fight with Dad, an infrequent bad day in school or after Flagstaff, he'd wake up screaming. It was the same after Jess though those were harder since we'd been apart for four years and it took some time for me to drop the shields I'd put up. He doesn't think I knew about 'em but I know he had nightmares after I got myself electrocuted by that damn Rawhead and was dying…another memo, don't stand in or anywhere close to water while using a damn taser.

Sam's nightmares stopped or at least he started learning how to hide 'em from me after I came back from Hell…though to be honest I was so screwed up I could hardly deal with my own problems to notice if he was having any. The last nightmare I can remember him having, detox nightmares do not count, was the last night we were at Bobby's… before Detroit.

Not that I blamed him for that one. He was one night away from confronting Lucifer and maybe ending the world if his plan failed. We'd healed some of the rifts between us but he was still trying too hard to be brave so he didn't think to wake me up before it got too bad.

Of course, what kind of big brother sleeps the night before his baby brother plans to become a meatsuit for the Devil? I did stupidly though the bottle of Scotch consumed before bed could've helped that but it was the sounds that reminded me of when Sam was ten and hiding his dreams from Dad that woke me up.

Sammy's six foot four, a good four inches taller then me, but that night he had curled into a ball in the corner of the very room that I had just left him sleeping in now. I had considered leaving it alone since we both agreed it was time to let him make his own choices and I heard him whispering my name. Nah, cutting the strings so to speak and letting him go to Detroit, was one thing. Leaving him alone, afraid, and sobbing just was not in the Dean Winchester Big Brother Guide to Baby Brothers…damn I need Bobby to find that thing.

It was just another one of those unspoken nights that we silently vowed never to mention again. Mainly because of my 'no chick-flick moments' rule… "Cas! Tell me you didn't use some kind of soap when you flooded my car!"

God, never tell an Angel to clean a car. It was my worry over Sam that's keeping me from reaching that postal stage of anger over this 'tiny misunderstanding'. Misunderstanding my ass. The nightmares and the pain that Sam's still in has brought the big brother over protectiveness back in full force so unless he's asleep I rarely leave the kid.

Not only for his sake but for my own. Sure, he's more at peace since waking up fully and he doesn't freak out if he does wake up and I'm not within line of sight but he's quiet, still too pale and still too willing to let me hover.

That's how I know that Sammy's still suffering both pain and nightmares. By now he's usually grumbling that he's fine and can take care of himself. This time he's not doing that. He's willing to let me gripe as I still feel for a fever every few hours and he's only now starting that familiar Sammy eyeroll when I won't let him downstairs. The true giveaway though is how he still moves closer when I sit next to him.

He's stopped reaching for the amulet to hold except for that one night a few night's ago when it took me an hour to calm him down and then I had to let Cas do the damn Angel mojo thing just to stop him from thrashing. That night, after he was back under, I didn't give a damn if I broke my no chick flick moments rule or if I was holding my brother like I used to when he was four, I let him cling to me and the amulet.

He won't talk about the dreams or really what happened in either the Cage with Michael and Lucifer or that year he was held in Lawrence. I asked once and then wanted to kick myself when he seemed to shrink inside of himself again. Since then neither Bobby nor I have asked Sam. Bobby figures when he's ready and feels safe enough that he'll talk.

Yeah, I know what that's like. I closed up about the time in Hell because of guilt and not wanting Sammy touched even a little by what I had done and seen. I grew up with the typical Winchester mantra of 'keep it inside, don't talk about it, and never show emotion'. That's me.

Sammy was never like that. Sammy needs to talk things out in order to survive and handle the hurt, the pain, and all the other crap we see.

Now though, he's bottling it up like I did and I know that eventually, when those walls break and they have to for his sanity, that he's going to crash and I had damn well better be ready for the world's biggest chick-flick time.

Wrinkling my nose as I stick my head into the back seat and growl as the familiar floral scent of laundry soap hits me. It's takes a count to fifty before I swear I won't shoot Cas when I turn on him again when I again look at the little green Army guy still stuck in the ashtray.

"You're just damn lucky that flood didn't make this come loose," I mutter over my shoulder, running a finger over the hard plastic and again recall the day Sam lodged it inside and also Dad's fury over it. I took the brunt of that…like I did most of the times.

Shaking that off, I look back up to the house as if feeling something watching me but I know that Bobby's house is probably more secure than anyplace we ever spent time at…I mean even Pastor Jim's place didn't keep him safe from Meg and that makes me wonder something else.

I've asked Cas what Sam might have been put through in the Cage and he's hedging. Cas is a really great guy, considering some Angels I've met and sure I freely admit that he might've picked up more than a few of my bad habits, but he still can't lie to me with a damn straight face. I know that he knows either all of it or a part of what those two douchebags put my baby brother through and it worries me.

I know a lot of those nightmares are probably coming from that time because I know Sammy still feels guilty about what Lucifer did to me in Stull…I love the kid but I've gotta convince him that I really did have a plan that day. I did…and it worked…to a degree.

Sammy didn't have a lot of time being put through the emotional roller-coaster by good ol' Zach like I did. Lucifer just tormented his dreams but I know what Angels are capable of so I can imagine what a couple of pissed off Archangels would do to my Sammy. Michael especially would have been outraged by Sam's actions and he'd do anything to hurt Sam.

Some things that Sammy's hollered out in his sleep or the way he'd whimper in his sleep gives me a clue what the bastard did and I'm hoping to avoid that talk for as long as possible. How to hurt Sam? What would be the best and worst way that Michael could hurt him? Show him every goddamn thing that I never wanted Sammy to know or learn.

I raised him while Dad was out hunting or passed out drunk after a hunt and did my best to make sure that Sam never knew how hard that was.

Sammy, even as a little kid, was just as protective of me as I was of him and if he knew the times I pretended to eat all the while keeping the food for him until Dad got back he wouldn't have touched it because I wasn't eating.

I had learned early on that Dad didn't want Bobby or Pastor Jim knowing if things were bad and the one time when I had to call Jim because Sam had gotten sick past the point where I could care for him I really learned that lesson.

Oh, I know Dad's reasoning. And I outwardly accepted his lectures, the yelling and after we were back on the road and away from Pastor Jim, the hard backhanded slaps he gave me for calling. If either him or Bobby really knew some of the crap I buried I figure Dad would have been dead a hell of a lot sooner and at the hand of his friends.

I swore Sam would never know about those times. I made damn sure he never found out about what happened between me and Dad the time he'd run away to Flagstaff. Sure, I know it hurt him when I didn't react normally to him after Dad dragged him back and God how it broke my heart not to just pull my baby brother into my arms when I first saw him. But I also knew if I had and he got a hint of how bad even a tiny touch was like agony then he'd go off on Dad and I wouldn't let that happen. Not out of the usual hating for them to fight but because if Dad would have gone to touch Sam, to hurt him, then I probably would have killed him myself and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that.

Now I wonder if Sam knows about it because I've caught him biting his lip when watching me and I translate that into Sammy-language as 'how do I bring it up without hurting Dean or making him pull away?'

I'll wait until he's finally ready to bring it up and then bluff my way through it without outright lying to him. He's got too many bad memories of Dad already and that's without him learning everything that I've protected him from hasn't all been monsters, werewolves, and spirits. Not to mention the fit Bobby would throw if he found out. Hell, he'd probably find a psychic, bring Dad's spirit back just long enough to rip him a new one and then exorcise him.

Be interesting to see and it's just something that Bobby would do. He's been patient with having us here, though he's giving Sammy too many ideas since Bobby's idea of Sam doing better and my idea are on totally different hemispheres. I'm keepin' him in bed until I know he's not going to nosedive to the floor if he gets too weak.

Cas says something that finally breaks through my Sammy-obsessed brain and I start to snap something flip back when I hear something crash from inside the house.

"Rufus! What the hell are you breakin' in there?" Bobby shouted in the open door but I know it wasn't Rufus doing anything.

Looking up to the window of the bedroom Sam and I have always shared I'm not too surprised when I lock onto my baby brother's tired looking hazel eyes and I know the second he realizes that I've seen him because he scrunches his forehead up like he's always done.

Cas is still trying to get my attention but I just throw up a hand in front of his face in my typical 'shut up, dry out my car because I have other things to do' motion before taking off for the house at a run, all the while counting down in my head how long it will take me to hit the bedroom and knowing that Sam had better have his ass back in bed before I get there.

I hear Bobby snorting something about stupid idjits driving him to drink but I don't care. I'd been outside too long and swore that Sam would not wake up without anyone, Bobby or I, with him. Cas is good and Sam doesn't appear to mind him being around unless he's just waking up or is on edge then I think the very feeling of an Angel brings back the bad crap so I keep Cas away unless I'm close.

Stepping into the room, I know he's just gotten back to the bed and I give him my usual line about giving Bobby a stroke with his wanderings. He knows better since Bobby's been on my back to lighten up and allow Sam to move around more so he gets stronger. Yeah, right. Not happenin' on my watch just yet.

"I…I woke up and was wondering where you were until I heard you yelling at Cas," Sam answered and I knew it was the truth. Just like I've been noticing that he's taken he holding my leather jacket more when I'm not close or he's nervous.

I remember the security that jacket gave me when Dad first started letting me use it and I wonder if it's not time to pass it on. I've finally accepted that I'll never have a son, or at least not yet, since this deal with the vampires made me realize that there is no going back to Lisa and Ben. I'll wait and see how Sam reacts if I bring it up.

On instinct I scan the room. Making sure the salt line I personally placed on the windowsill was still intact before turning to watch him, gauging Sam's emotions like I used to do and I can tell he's been awake a hell of a lot longer than he's letting on but I let it go. He's still weak and tired as I sit back down next to him and I'm not surprised when he eases closer and starts to fall back to sleep.

I'm trying to keep it light when he asks me if I've ever regretted any of it. I know what he means and I swear to make Cas tell me what he knows but Sam's half asleep and waiting for an answer that he doesn't think is coming.

I could ignore it, let it pass and he'll fall asleep but there was a pain in his voice that I haven't heard since he found out about the deal I made to save his life and when he says he's sorry for Flagstaff I know what he's been showed and I swallow the lump that forms.

"You know I'm sorry, right?" he asks again, his eyes tired but wet and I give up trying to ignore it as I continue rubbing the same circles and shapes on his shoulder and back as I'd always done.

"Yeah, Sammy I know you are," I sigh, closing my eyes and whispering. "I've never regretted anything because that's what big brothers are supposed to do. It's what big brothers will always do and what I'll keep on doing for you."

I wait to see if he'd respond and while I feel him shaking, he slowly nods before drifting under and a piece of me wishes he'd drop the walls and let the flood come. I need him to open up before we go back on the road if that's what he chooses to do and I need to have a handle on it before I deal with the Campbell situation.

Bobby offered to call Samuel to let him know about Sam but I downright refused. Sam had heard that offer and he'd clutched onto my arm in a way that I'd never seen him do. Something about our Grandfather was worrying my little brother and while I had serious suspicions about the whole group I wasn't about to put Sam at risk until I knew what I could be walking us into.

Cas had brought a note from Missouri telling me to watch who I trusted well that's another no brainer. I trust one person besides Sammy and that's Bobby. I'll leave Sam with him until I get a handle on Samuel and the Campbell kids but that's a hunt for another day.

I'm halfway asleep and feeling Sam getting closer to my side which means he's worn himself out and will most likely wake up soon shouting when I hear a whoosh that mades my stomach drop and the front door slam back open.

"Goddamn it, you feather-brained idjit! That ain't how you dry a car out and you damn well better fix that before Dean gets back down here and has a stroke!"

Forcing my eyes to stay closed and vowing silently to hurt Cas for whatever he's done now, I stay still as I lightly run my fingers through Sam's hair and he settles back down.

I have my little brother back and I'll kill, burn, or decapitate the first son of a bitch who even looks at him wrong…now I just have to get our home back in one piece. Damn Angel. You'd think being a bigwig in Heaven and knowing how close he came one time to getting shot that he'd know not to mess with my…I glance at Sam…our baby.

"You can go see," Sam mumbles, his fingers are gripping my jacket tighter and I gently pry it loose just enough so I can lay it over him.

"If I did that, I think I'd be digging up the tin of Holy Oil and using it on him." I grumble, trying to ignore the images that come to mind as Bobby yells for Rufus to bring the hose and for Cas to fix it and I'm half asleep when I first catch what feels like a presence next to us but shrug it off to being exhausted.

Bobby's house is too protected to let anything in and there's an Angel in the front yard so if a demon tries or even another Angel, note to self have Cas find Gabriel since I sure don't need him pulling any crap while Sammy's this weak.

Falling to sleep I ignore the soft touch I think I feel or the perfume that I should know as I settle in knowing that once again I have both brother and home within reach…now to just get rid of Cas before I have to rebuild the damn car again.

The End.

_A/N: I'm planning one more like this but in Castiel's POV…which should be interesting. Not sure if I'll expand on what Dean finds when he starts looking into the Campbells but I might if the inspiration strikes right._

_Also, sorry for any John fans. I know I'm not painting him in a good light but it's just how I get an image of the man. _

_Thanks for reading and as always reviews are welcome since I take a lot of inspiration from them._


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